The Gordon Research Conference on "Nitric Oxide (NO)" is designed to provide chemists, biologists, cell biologists, clinicians and other scientists with state of the art knowledge on the basic structure/function relationships of NO generating systems and the biology of NO as a signaling molecule in physiological and pathophysiological states. This research conference is held every two years and the next conference will take place at the Il Ciocco, Barga, Italy, on March 1-6. Approximately 175 participants from academia, government and industry are expected to attend the 2009 Gordon Research Conference. Funds are requested to partially support travel costs and/or conference registration fees for participants (i.e. speakers/discussion leaders from the United States and abroad and for productive graduate students/post-doctoral candidates, younger scientists working in the field of NO biology). The speakers have been selected by previous chairs, co-chairs and others in the field to cover emerging areas in the field and to balance the program with senior and junior investigators. Sessions will include the chemical and molecular mechanism of action of nitric oxide in cardiovascular and neurodegenerative diseases as well as cancer. Professors William Sessa, Peter Ford, and Curt Harris have agreed to present plenary lectures as well as Louis Ignarro as chair of the first session on their current findings and will add distinction to the meeting. In addition, there are two prominently featured poster sessions selected from abstracts submitted to the meeting and a special "hot topics" session that encourages last minute submissions of exciting findings from new or established investigators culminating in awards given to several of the junior investigators. The main strength of this meeting is the opportunity for cross disciplinary interactions in a highly focused, yet informal intellectually stimulating atmosphere. The Gordon Conference on NO plays an essential role in exploring new vistas in this important translational field.